


The Idiot's Guide to Dating Russian Assassins

by igrockspock



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2188980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four different people try to help Clint understand that Natasha wants to be more than friends.  He doesn't listen to any of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Idiot's Guide to Dating Russian Assassins

"Did you have a good weekend?" Phil asks.

Clint reaches for the coffee pot, rubbing the Monday morning sleep out of his eyes. Phil is staring at him with strange, eager look on his face.

"Yeah," he says cautiously. It's too fucking early for, well, whatever this is.

" _Yeah_?" Phil repeats incredulously. "That's all?"

Clint narrows his eyes. "Yeah."

"You went on a date with _Natasha Romanov _and all you can say is _yeah_?"__

__Clint frowns. When did Phil Coulson become a gossiping twelve-year-old? And more importantly, what the fuck was he talking about?_ _

__"We hung out, Phil. Sometimes men and women do that, and it's not a date," he says slowly, as if Phil is a child who might not understand._ _

__"You ate hot wings," Phil says. "At a sports bar."_ _

__Apparently that fact has some meaning to Phil because he's wearing that eager, expectant look again. Clint is much more concerned with how his supervising officer knows what he does on Saturday nights._ _

__"Are you stalking me?" he asks. "Because I thought we were very clear that neither Romanov nor I are under surveillance anymore, so if you follow me places, that's stalking."_ _

__"I don't need to stalk you. People notice things around here," Phil says placidly._ _

__" _You_ notice things," Clint says. He doesn't have much life outside SHIELD, but what little he does have, he likes to keep private._ _

__"Well, you're my two favorite spies." Phil puts down his coffee cup and stands directly in front of Clint, looking wild and excited. "You're missing the _point_ , Barton. Romanov doesn't eat chicken wings. Have you ever tried to go to lunch with her? She only wants those little organic salads made out of weeds and microgreens."_ _

__"What the fuck are microgreens?" Clint asks._ _

____

***

When he hits the shooting range that afternoon, Clint thinks about what Phil had said. He might have a point -- not about the date, but about the chicken wings and the sports bar. Romanov really doesn't seem like the type to enjoy that kind of outing. He frowns and fits another arrow to his bow. He ought to have known better, but who could fault him? His friends are dudes. Okay, his friends are Phil Coulson, and Coulson likes to watch basketball and eat hot wings. Next week, he and Romanov should go to a wine bar. He probably has some slacks buried in his closet somewhere.

***

"Are you and Romanov going out again?" Fury asks. He's sitting at his big metal-and-glass desk, his fingers steepled like a cartoon villain.

"If I can ask, what the fuck is it to you, sir?" Clint asks. He manages not to fidget because he's not a teenager, and he's not _going out_ with anyone.

"I like Romanov," Fury says. And then he smiles. It's like a gash in his face. "And more importantly, this topic makes you deeply uncomfortable. I enjoy that."

Clint rolls his eyes. Better to get this over with quickly. "Yes, Agent Romanov and I are _hanging out_ again this Friday. Friends do that sometimes."

"I see. And did Romanov invite you to _hang out again_ at the end of your last _outing_?" Fury asks. Clint can hear the air quotes dripping from his voice.

"Yes," he says. "Do you have enough gossip for the water cooler now?"

Fury comes out from around his desk and lays a fatherly hand on Clint's shoulder. "Barton, Agent Coulson has informed me that you do not understand the definition of a date, so let me fill you in. When someone invites you out, to perform an activity they do not enjoy, they pay for said activity, and then they invite you to repeat it -- _that_ is a date. Don't fuck it up."

***

Clint's still thinking about Fury's words when he walks home from work. Everything Fury ever says sounds like God's own truth, but that didn't mean the guy is never wrong. To be fair, Clint isn't exactly experienced at dating. He'd tried it a few times when he was in the Army, but he'd hated it; every date seemed loaded with rules he didn't know and expectations he couldn't fulfill. After that, he hadn't bothered. An occasional one night stand was all he'd ever needed. So yes, it is possible that if someone asked him out on a date, he wouldn't recognize it. But that didn't mean that Romanov was trying to date him.

So what if she'd paid? It was nice, but he and Phil took turns picking up the tab when they went out for drinks. No one thought _that_ was dating. And surely, if she'd really meant to ask him out, she would have been more obvious about it? At the end of the night, she'd slid off her bar stool and said, "Same time next week, Barton?" with her usual half smile. That was all. He shook his head. Nope, not a date.

***

When Clint runs into Romanov on Wednesday, he says, "We should go to the wine bar this weekend. I mean, if you like wine bars."

The words feel awkward, but he forgets that when Natasha's face lights up. He realizes suddenly that he's never really seen her smile. He's seen her knowing little smirk, and her predatory grin when she's knows she's got the kill, but he's never seen her look like _this_ \-- like she's actually _happy._

"I do like wine bars, Barton," she says. "Thank you for asking."

Maybe it's Clint's imagination, but he thinks he sees a new lightness in her step as she walks down the corridor. Or maybe it's _not_ his imagination. Maybe it would be okay to believe she needs a friend as much as he does. It's almost enough to make him forget how terrified he is by the thought of a wine bar. He can't actually remember the last time he drank wine, but he has a bad feeling it came out of a box.

***

Maria Hill slides into the seat next to his at the mess hall and dips a french fry into his ketchup. He has a bad feeling he knows what she wants to talk about.

"So...you and Romanov...wine bar? You know you have to tell me about it."

Clint looks at Hill carefully. She doesn't look as wildly excited as Coulson, or as maniacal as Fury, so she's not after gossip and not planning to torture him. In fact, it's almost like he's talking to a friend -- which maybe she is. No, he and Hill don't hang out outside the office, but that's because she actually _lives_ at the office. That doesn't mean she isn't his friend.

"There's not a lot to tell," he says truthfully. "We went to a wine bar. I felt awkward. Then we left."

"So you had a few drinks and parted ways at the door?" Hill asks.

"No, we went on a walk," Clint says. He really doesn't get what everyone finds so interesting about this.

Hill grins. "Okay, so _you_ felt awkward, but Romanov was having a good time or she wouldn't have wanted to go somewhere else with you. Where did you walk?"

Clint moves his ketchup to the other side of the table before Hill can steal any more of it. "Uh, around the Village, I think. And then we ended up at her apartment."

Hill's head snaps up. "You ended up at her _apartment_? Did she invite you inside?"

Clint shrugs. "Yeah. She said something about having beer in the fridge, but I was tired, so I went home."

Hill buries her face in her hands. "You are a fucking _idiot_ , Barton. Natasha Romanov invited you to her apartment, and you said _no?_ "

"I told you. I was tired," Clint says. He'd drawn the short straw on the mission assignments and spent two days stalking a target in Altus, Oklahoma, where it was 104 degrees outside _before_ you counted the humidity. He'd only gotten back to New York an hour before their not-a-date at the wine bar.

"When a woman invites you back to her apartment for a drink, that's woman code for _I want to fuck you_. Do you seriously not know that?" Hill asks.

Clint starts stacking his trash onto his tray. He doesn't know why everyone wants him to date Romanov so badly, but it's getting fucking old. Can't he just enjoy having a new friend without everyone trying to make him want more than he can have?

"Listen," he says, trying to keep his voice patient and reasonable. Hill is his friend, after all, even if she's misguided. "I know Natasha pretty well, okay? If she wanted to have sex with a person, they'd get the message."

"Yeah, a _person_ would, Barton. But you're not a person. Socially, you're somewhere in between a bobcat and a badly programmed robot." She lays a hand on Barton's wrist. "Seriously, she likes you, and if you don't do something about it, she's going to think you're not interested."

***

Melinda May's knee digs into Clint's back. His face is pressed into the blue matt on the gymnasium floor, and she's twisting his arm behind him. As if all of that weren't bad enough, May leans close to his ear and asks, "Why did Natasha Romanov ask me if you're gay?"

"Probably because she wants to know if I'm gay," he says, even though he has no idea why Natasha wouldn't just ask him herself.

May shifts her weight, like she's making herself comfortable hanging out on Clint's back. "She's confused, Barton," she says. "You went to her apartment last night, but you sat on the edge of her couch as far away from her as you could get."

"How do you know _that_?" Clint asks, trying -- and failing-- to twist his arm out of May's grip. May is technically still a trainee, but she's a better fighter than most fully fledged agents.

"She told me," May says, which is weird. He knows Natasha and Melinda are friends, but why would either of them care where he sat in Natasha's apartment? Okay, maybe it had been a little awkward, but that wasn't his fault. He blames Coulson and Fury and Hill and everyone else who'd made him question whether he understood anything at all about friendship and romance. He'd picked out a safe-looking spot in the corner of the couch because he wanted Nat to know that whatever gossip had come her way, he understood she was just looking for a friend.

"This isn't easy for her, you know," May says. "It's hard for her to be vulnerable to anyone, even you. Don't keep her hanging in suspense just because you're scared."

Clint wants to argue, but instead he lets his muscles go slack, like he's given up the fight. If May has a weakness, it's over confidence. Her grip on his arm slackens infinitesmally. Then a fraction of her weight shifts from his back. He has her in a headlock in ten seconds flat.

"How much is in the betting pool?" he asks.

"What betting pool?" May asks, her voice raspy from the pressure on her throat. Clint doesn't play around, even at practice.

Now it's his turn to dig his knee into May's back.

"Try again," he says.

"A hundred bucks," May chokes out. "Two hundred if you get together before Labor Day."

Clint lets her go and sits back on the matt, satisfied. A betting pool explained a lot. Phil and Maria are probably just excited, but Fury and May are both Machiavellian psychopaths. He wouldn't be surprised if they'd generated all the gossip themselves just to win the money.

***

Clint doesn't really like the East Village, but he does like the used bookstore Natasha's taken them to. He feels at home here, with the reassuring smell of dust wafting out of the books' yellowed pages and the uneven stacks of philosophy tomes pressing against shelves of John Grisham thrillers. He likes watching Natasha browse too. Her neck curves delicately toward the books, and she runs her short fingernails along the spines. Every once in awhile, she pulls a book out and flips through it, reading a few pages here and there.

Natasha slides her latest selection back onto the shelf and looks at him sharply. "Help me figure something out, Barton," she says. "The way you were looking at me just now, I could swear that you like me, but when you came to my apartment last night, you couldn't wait to leave."

 _Say something_ , Clint tells himself fiercely. He has no idea what the right response is, but he's certain that saying nothing is the worst thing he could do.

"I don't know what to say," he says finally.

He knows it's the wrong answer as soon as he says it. Natasha's face is neutral, but he can see the hurt in her eyes. 

"If you're not interested, just tell me. I'm a big girl, Clint. I can take it."

Clint looks down at the floor, pinching the bridge of his nose. He sees Natasha's battered old sneakers against the worn blue carpeting. Before they'd started hanging out last month, he'd imagined she'd stalked through Manhattan in mile-high stillettos, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Even her apartment had been soft and cozy -- exactly the kind of place he could belong, if he let himself.

"I have completely and totally fucked up," he says. He takes a deep breath. "Are you saying that you _like_ me?" he asks.

"I've been saying that for a month." She doesn't add _you idiot_ at the end, but Clint can hear it in her voice.

"I didn't know," he says. "Well, I didn't at first. And then I did, but I was scared. I don't...I don't do this a lot," he finishes lamely. He's babbling, and he needs to stop. "I'm sorry, Nat. I don't know how any of this works."

Natasha snorts. "Do you think I do?"

She doesn't sound angry anymore, so Clint figures it's safe to look her in the eye. A smile is playing around the edges of her lips, a faint echo of the one he'd seen when he asked her to the wine bar. He wants to see her look that happy again.

"Can I take you out to dinner?" he asks.

"No," Natasha says serenely, and Clint shouldn't be surprised. She'd given him a hundred chances, and he'd rejected them all. He can't expect to make things right with a single bumbling conversation.

But Natasha is standing close to him now, close enough that he can feel the heat of her body and smell the faint vanilla scent of her lotion.

"You can't take me out to dinner because you hate going out to dinner," she says, smoothing out a wrinkle near the collar of his shirt. "But you can come to my apartment and drink beer and watch a movie tomorrow."

She's still smoothing the non-existent wrinkle, and he reaches up to catch her hand in his. It's smaller than he'd expected, and her skin is soft against his calluses.

"It's a date," he says.


End file.
